Episode 431 - Start Spreading the News

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:23Melissa Ellis: Welcome to episode 431 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name is Melissa Ellis and I am recording on Wurundjeri Country.

00:00:35Tony O'Connell: And my name is TOC and I'm recording on Boon Wurrung Country.

00:00:39Melissa Ellis: Ahoy, TOC.

00:00:41Tony O'Connell: Oh, no. I'm not going to repeat that and sit there when the lights go out and the screen goes black and I'm not going to sit there saying, ahoy, ahoy, ahoy. I sound like a pirate on a broken record.

00:00:55Melissa Ellis: I salvaged all the recording, so you're welcome.

00:01:00Tony O'Connell: Thank you, because I was starting to think maybe this is going to be a Wednesday night re-record just for the intro.

00:01:06Melissa Ellis: Yes, now we did have some technical problems last week. And it was a similar problem that we had at our live palm recording where... We thought the recording had failed because the clock that ticks over the duration of the recording disappeared. So we thought, maybe it's not recording anymore. So I actually refreshed and stopped and started again. But then actually, when I listened back to the file that we had captured, all along, you could hear us both.

00:01:38Tony O'Connell: All I saw, Mel, was my screen went black and I went into panic mode. So let's not do that again tonight.

00:01:45Melissa Ellis: No, we won't. And you know what? We've got to do this in one take, TOC. So no bloopers because I'm on a pretty tight schedule with getting the editing done. I've got parent-teacher interviews on Thursday night, which is supposed to be one of my only editing nights of the week. And Friday morning, I'm on an aeroplane. And I saw a note further down that this has to be out by the weekend. Yeah. So all the pressure's on me. So I'm pushing back a bit. One take.

00:02:16Tony O'Connell: One take and no bloopers. And how about let's just go minimal editing this week.

00:02:20Melissa Ellis: Okay.

00:02:21Tony O'Connell: Well, all right. I know that's going to struggle with the Mel philosophy of editing, but let's go minimal.

00:02:27Melissa Ellis: Okay. Well, one thing that that is going to mean, TOC, is that there's going to be a lot more ums in there.

00:02:35Tony O'Connell: Why is that?

00:02:37Melissa Ellis: If I don't cut them out, there's going to be a lot more. I'll tell you what is good, though. How clean is the office? Did you notice?

00:02:44Tony O'Connell: Oh, wow. I'm actually in my new relocated level two with a view and it's very clean at the moment.

00:02:50Melissa Ellis: It's all tidied up. I've employed a cleaner. Casual or full time? The terms of the contract. All are ad hoc.

00:03:04Tony O'Connell: Arr. Ahoy.

00:03:08Melissa Ellis: so yes we've got a new cleaner I haven't laid eyes on the new cleaner yet it's sort of a an arrangement where the cleaner comes in at night while the office is vacant um I just stuffed some money in the bicky barrel to fix them up for their services and uh I I think they've even done a parkrun I saw in Dazza's did you notice

00:03:33Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I did notice and I thought, yep, the cleaner's doing a great job. Let's see how long that lasts for.

00:03:41Melissa Ellis: not casting any dispersions on the reason that the office is in a mess for fear of incriminating myself or offending my fellow hosts. Probably time to move on.

00:03:54Tony O'Connell: It is, Mel. And I think I'll start with my recap because it's been two weeks since we caught up. And since then, I went on a trip. I decided to copy Mel, be like Mel. And so I went to South Australia for a parkrun. There was a parkrun ambassadors conference and for those that aren't in the know the ambassadors in Australia get to select a state to go to but you can only go to one ambassador conference so I selected South Australia instead of going to Victoria because I've done all the Victorian parkruns. And so we went over to conference. We had a catch up on the Friday night. We did a parkrun on the Saturday and then we had a full day of conferencing Saturday. It basically rained for the whole weekend, except for a couple of hours while we were at parkrun. And there were two venues that people went to. I went to Oaklands Reserve Park, because Emma Steele, who was also at the conferences, the co-ed there, and I had a great chat with Emma and the co-ed Kevin, and I decided to go to Oaklands. So it was a bit of a rebel tour because the official conference venue was Belair, which was not too far away either. So the people that went to Belair, they got rained on. We went to Oaklands. We had blue sky, and they're only about 8 or 9K apart. Worked that one out. And then on the Sunday, I went to Thornton Juniors, and I've managed to get to my third Australian Juniors event now. Had an absolute ball, and I think we sat around and drank coffee and talked afterwards in the golf club building for probably longer than we actually sat at Juniors. So, yeah, another successful day there. Moving along to this week, we went to Belvedere Reserve parkrun in Victoria. I know you did this one a couple of weeks ago, Mel. And that was for us to regain our greatsmanship. So we're back on the list. Nine adventurers in attendance there. And it was great to have a chat to Deb Jessop, who you mentioned when you were there. Steve Amor, who I caught up with Inverloch a couple of weeks ago, he knew we were going to be at Belvedere. So he came along with his partner Anna. They're still in their role of... successive parkruns that they've been to without repeating one um had a great chat with the smiths I always love catching up with Daryl Vicky and John spent probably a huge amount of time in the car park afterwards talking to them when really wanted to get home and start packing for a move but I was really enjoying the chat I really enjoy chatting with Daryl in particular we had a fair bit of time talking about running injuries and getting older and old man injuries so it was a great catch up there I missed catching up with Adrian Sell and Lauren Bartley on the day they were also adventurers that were there but I caught up with just about everyone else I walked around the course with fellow EA Bruce Purdy and Bruce and I had a fantastic chat while we were walking at the back of the pack Had a great catch up with Michelle Taylor and also ran into Neil Bath from Queensland who was there. Neil and I haven't seen each other for quite a while. He was an EA back many years ago. Over too soon, we had coffee, we had a bacon and egg roll over at the Bowls Club and then back home into the packing. So that was our parkrun adventures. Mel, how about you? What have you been up to in the two weeks?

00:07:19Melissa Ellis: Hang on, hang on. I get a right of reply here, don't I? I haven't finished asking you about your your two weeks now one thing I was wondering when you said you spent longer at brunch after Thorndon juniors than you actually did waiting for the juniors to do their event were you with Janet

00:07:42Tony O'Connell: No. No, Janet was fairly busy on the weekend. I had a chat with Janet on the Saturday at the Ambassadors Conference. I sat with Janet for the conference and we had a good little catch up. But no, she wasn't at Thornton Juniors on the Sunday. She had other things on.

00:07:59Melissa Ellis: Okay. Alrighty. Well, that is fine. We miss you, Janet. My weekend. Okay, well, two weeks ago, I went to Quinns Rocks parkrun. That was the 26th of July on the traditional lands of the Noongar people. And that was my 249th different event. Hooray! I actually managed to achieve my goal of lining up my two achievements. What are they? Hmm... Would you call them achievements? No. What word am I looking at? Yeah, that's close enough. This is what happens to me when I don't prepare in advance and have a script to read. This is why I do it. But it's not really two milestones because 250 different events isn't actually a milestone. I think that's where I'm getting tripped up. In any case, I have lined it up, in preparation for next week so yay big tick there anyway so I flew to wa I stayed with Sarah from the West Side I got hadley cuddles which was pretty cool and I even caught up with half of team Bravos Chloe Bravos at queens rocks parkrun now we did record the spinning of the wheel On the Friday night, it did occur quite late because once I did arrive in WA, which is two hours behind the eastern seaboard of Australia, and then we had our little discussion about what events were going to be in the mix. By the time that all occurred, of course, everybody on the east side would have been already in bed ready for their early start on parkrun morning. Quinns Rocks did win the spin, and that is why we headed out there. So I got another Q. I think I've got three now. Not that I chase alphabets, but they're not bad to have in your back pocket should, you know, you ever be in a position to get three Zs or something. We all had brunch together. It was pretty nice weather for the morning out there at Quinns Rocks, although I have to say the West Side did not put on the weather for me. It was rainy and unusually cold for WA. Last weekend... I had the luxury of a local parkrun and Dave and I popped out to Peppertree to catch up with Adrian Hillyer out there and just run a local parkrun and enjoy a local brunch out at Lola's. So that is it, a quick one from me this week.

00:10:30Tony O'Connell: Mel, I think after six out of eight weeks in South Australia and then one week into WA, I reckon just driving up the road to Peppertree and catching up with Adrian and the crew up there, Would have been a pretty cool and casual way of doing it. And yeah, Peppertree is a great little parkrun, up and down, and, yeah, it would have been a good way of killing us that day.

00:10:55Melissa Ellis: But do you know what I noticed? I haven't been to Peppertree, I think, maybe around the 10 weeks, 10, 11, 12 weeks. There was a heap of trees cut down on the course. So for the listeners, the Peppertree parkrun course runs along the Werribee River. Werribee River is quite a main river through the western side of Victoria. And it is populated by platypus and there has been platypus sightings in the past and even quite recently in the Werribee River. What they're actually trying to do is get rid of a lot of European or introduced species, I think, of trees and clean up the river so it's a bit healthier for the local indigenous fauna. But as a result, they're chopping the peppercorn trees down, okay that's probably what the area is best known for so that's going to be a significant change in the area it's pepper tree park and so if they cut all the pepper trees down I I am wondering what that's going to mean for pepper tree park and if there's a potential of a renaming in the future so you never know but anyway that's what's going on at pepper tree let's just hope it all works in favour of the platypus if they get rid of the pepper tree will it be just park parkrun Platypus parkrun.

00:12:19Tony O'Connell: Start the monotremes. And we need an echidna parkrun to keep up with the kangaroos and the wallabies.

parkrun news bulletin

00:12:27Melissa Ellis: Yes, yes, yes. Anyway, but let's discuss what's in the news in this last week. There has been a couple of things that popped up, I believe.

00:12:36Tony O'Connell: There has been, Mel, and look, we'll start off, Main Beach parkrun, Australia's number one event, cancelled this week due to lack of volunteers. And I had a bit of a look, and look... Being one of the larger events, they get a couple of hundred people a week. They do need a bigger complement. But looking through their volunteer roster, it seems to be one of the ones that... Because it's a tourist area on the Gold Coast, a little bit like, I guess, Inverloch, where we have a lot of people turn up for their first time... or first time at that event because they're only holidaying there for a week or two. They're not back again, so they don't volunteer because they want to run. But I just thought it was interesting that an event of that sort of size had a cancellation due to a lack of volunteers. But I know they did a post online I think it was Monday or Tuesday night. I reckon they had probably six or seven positions that are still trying to fill. Didn't get any response from it. So they made the decision early. And look, I actually support them making the decision early because I think we see a lot of events that are posting and posting. They put out three or four call-outs and they go into all this effort to try and get people. And then they end up cancelling last minute. At least Main Beach Rugby give people a little bit of a heads up. And you get the inevitable, they cancel and people say, oh, but I would have volunteered. But where there's been call outs, I think if you're going to volunteer, jump in and volunteer. Don't wait until they cancel and say, oh, but I was going to volunteer. Can you go ahead again?

00:14:09Melissa Ellis: Yeah, that's a very good point. Because it did cross my mind, I will be honest, especially having previously been very involved in a junior parkrun where we have to make the call by Thursday evening or at a push really early Friday morning if we're going to cancel, if we haven't got a full roster. I did think to myself, oh, come on, like... that Saturday morning a 5k event can still be you know doing a shout out and pulling volunteers they've got the luxury of doing that you don't have a deadline like juniors I mean but of course I did not consider those points those very valid points that you made

00:14:45Tony O'Connell: And I think for a lot of teams too, if it's a one-off thing and you're in a fortunate position where you're not doing those call-outs all the time, you're probably a little bit more tolerant to doing it as an event. But if you're an event that's doing the call-outs every week and you're trying to fill five or six spots, it does become draining trying to fill every week. And sometimes I think people just get to the point where they think... Look, it's going to be safer to call it now.

00:15:12Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I understand. Let's hope that they can get a bit of community support behind them and that that is just a little bleep on the radar.

00:15:22Tony O'Connell: And better news, Mel.

00:15:24Melissa Ellis: Better news. Start spreading the news.

00:15:29Tony O'Connell: there's great tune for that one New York there's a lot of talk about the Big Apple's first parkrun is coming soon and that's going to be great because it's a fair way from the nearest parkrun up there apparently it's going to start at Pier 1 at Brooklyn Bridge Park and it's going to take in on the 5k journey a lot of the key sites of New York so you're going to get views of Brooklyn Bridge the east river and the statue of liberty all on the parkrun so I'm thinking this is sort of probably for the USA it's going to where Crissy Field was with the iconic golden gate bridge quick, TOC, we've got to go before, while it's still there

00:16:17Melissa Ellis: We just talked about this last week. I mentioned that I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty.

00:16:22Tony O'Connell: Well, you're going to have an opportunity to see it in the middle of a parkrun. So that's going to be a really iconic parkrun. I know that parkrun are really keen to see a good local contingent event, support the park rather than just being, you know, all visitors. Visitors are great, but it'll be really good to see a contingent of locals at it as well. And it's just going to be so iconic.

00:16:48Melissa Ellis: They'll be saying, Chrissy who? Yeah.

00:16:52Tony O'Connell: You do have a parkrun, you know, just over the river a little bit, Branch Brook Park parkrun in Newark. Not too far away, but yeah, for the New York region, this is a massive step for parkrun and a big goal for parkrun, you know, to get it up and going. I'm really looking forward to seeing the photos and hearing about it when it launches.

00:17:14Melissa Ellis: Wow. It's a dream one for the list. It is. But there is other news of broken apps at the moment. What's all that about?

00:17:26Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, Mel, I don't know much of the background behind it, but I've just seen in a few of the groups that I'm in, running achievements, app is broken at the moment. I know they're working hard to get it up and going again. Probably not a lot else to say other than, you know, People are getting a little bit snarky at the bloke that runs it. But you've got to remember, he's not doing this as a money man. He's a volunteer doing this app. So give the guy a break. Hopefully he can get it up and running again.

00:17:56Alice - lead vocalist on the "parkrun Party" song: Hmm.

00:17:57Tony O'Connell: Yeah. Well, I think speaking of things being broken and numbers and people and things not working...

00:18:06Melissa Ellis: Let's move away from that. Is that what you're saying? Changing the subject?

00:18:11Tony O'Connell: Because we have a very interesting thing across the ditch this week. Did we? We did. 2nd of August across the ditch, there were 61 parkruns. There were 7,824 finishers and 975 volunteers. But Hagley was cancelled this week. Oh. And I really, I jumped in as soon as I saw that Hagley was going to cancel. I jumped in, had a good look at Riverlution because that was set up just down the road from Hagley. We've mentioned that a few times before. They had the biggest increase in the week by numbers. They had an increase of 97 people. So not everyone from Hagley actually went to Riverlution. They must have spread out because there are several parkruns in the area. But Waitangi took the crown with 364 finishes in New Zealand this week, followed by Hobsonville Point on 337. And East Otago High School came in with nine figures or nine finishes, guaranteeing you a top 10 finish again. So there's always one of those New Zealand events at the moment that's offering that top 10 finish. You just need to find it.

00:19:23Melissa Ellis: Can't believe New Zealand's up to 61 parkruns.

00:19:26Tony O'Connell: They're actually up to about 63. I think there were two cancellations this week.

00:19:30Melissa Ellis: Oh, good job, New Zealand. Meanwhile, on the mainland, across Australia, we had 492 events with 50,610 finishes and we had 5,827 volunteers. That was at the time when the notes were done. Now, interestingly, we had 7,644 first-time ever parkrunners. That is about 15.1%, oh, that's precise, of our finishers who were new to parkrun. And at Junior parkrun, there were five events that hosted 356 finishers, resulting in 62 PBs supported by 97 amazing volunteers. Now, on the 26th of July, the smallest parkrun in Australia was Karoola Park and Mobilong with three. And the largest was Albert Melbourne with 980. So that's huge numbers for winter. But we believe that could have been tourists visiting to see the British Lions rugby, which was the same reason that South Bank was so high the previous week. There you go. The fairies are giving us the answers that we're asking for. Now on the 2nd which was last weekend, the 2nd of August, the smallest event was Braidwood Showground with only two finishes and the largest again was Albert Melbourne but slightly down than the previous week with 654. That's more kind of winter numbers isn't it?

00:21:00Tony O'Connell: It is, Mel, and I find it interesting that we had about 15% of first-time ever parkrunners attending. I know week in, week out, we seem to get a fairly high number of first-timers, and I still keep coming back to that question. What do we do to make them second-timers if 15% of our people, you know, we should be... having an exceptional growth if those people were coming back, even if half of them were coming back every week, we'd have an exceptional growth. So what's not happening out there to get people back for their all-important second parkrun?

00:21:34Melissa Ellis: Well, they all came for the rugby and they just made their partner come to parkrun with them, didn't they? And then they were like, well, I'm not going this week because...

00:21:43Tony O'Connell: It's wet and cold and miserable.

00:21:44Unidentified speaker: LAUGHTER

International Ugly Christmas Singlet Day

00:21:47Melissa Ellis: But what we are next to discuss is Ugly Christmas in July Day. I wore my gear, did you?

00:21:54Tony O'Connell: I did. I was one of two people at Oaklands Reserve that wore the gear, Jacqui being the other one.

00:22:00Unidentified speaker: LAUGHTER

00:22:03Tony O'Connell: But I really did enjoy looking through the photos that were posted on the day and seeing, like, so many international events where there were people out in the ugly tops. People must have been wondering, what the heck is this emu thing doing or this koala running around Germany or the UK or wherever people were out and about? Yeah.

00:22:26Melissa Ellis: It does cause a bit of interest from overseas, doesn't it? I mean, it's just normal for us. Like, it's July, you know, you do Christmas in July. That's just what we do here. But I noticed Ali Sheppard shared a post on her socials which actually explained this strange thing that the Australians do and gave a bit of a story behind it. I believe it sort of originated in some small area where there was some expat UK or I can't remember the nationality but anyway there were people that are from the northern hemisphere that were maybe missing the festive spirit in the cold weather yes so the publican said oh well let's pull the Christmas tree out and let's just do it now quite interesting I

00:23:17Tony O'Connell: I know it certainly raises a lot of interest. Like even at Oaklands, the number of people that come up to me and actually asked where they could buy the T-shirt. I had the budgies on. But yeah, it certainly creates interest every time you wear them.

00:23:33Melissa Ellis: Well, I wore my budgies as well at Quinns Rocks, and I was part of a tinsel of three, the other two being Sarah Jefferson and Chloe Bravos, who were sporting... I don't know what Chloe's one was, actually. I don't know that it... Oh, it'll be in the photos anyway, but yay. We were a matchy-matchy of uglies, so that's that.

00:23:58Tony O'Connell: That's that. Mel, moving on to... a little bit about this weekend. I believe there's an event happening in Queensland. We've advertised the date, finally, the 9th of August. Um, we've got a big 500th and a Freyne Club for you this week. You've managed to make all the stars align.

00:24:19Melissa Ellis: I did. And now I feel a bit embarrassed because it's like I've made a bit of a hoo-ha about it.

00:24:25Tony O'Connell: Oh, I think it's a great opportunity. Um, yeah, it's going to be a great little catch up with a whole heap of people. Um, But, yeah, just being able to align the Freyne, which is 250 unique events with your 500, it's been a massive goal that you've had for years, and I'm really looking forward to celebrating with you at it.

00:24:44Melissa Ellis: Thank you. The eyes have been on the prize for the last few months and I think I've been so focused on just ticking off those adventures one by one and trying to keep myself on track that I've kind of blocked out the fact that now there's going to be this kind of party and it's sort of... Now I feel a bit shy about being the centre of attention.

00:25:06[crosstalk]

00:25:09Tony O'Connell: Make the most of it, Mel. And as you said right at the start of the pod, the pod has to get out early. Oh. No pressure.

00:25:16Melissa Ellis: No pressure. I know. I've got to get it out by Thursday. So I'm going to rush through my parent-teacher interviews and stay up till midnight. And Cassie's coming to stay the night because we've got to be at the airport by like 6 a.m. I've got a 6 a.m. flight, TOC. Why do I do this to myself?

00:25:32Tony O'Connell: I've got about a 6.30 p.m. flight, so I'm going to be arriving up there really late. And you've just reminded me I don't have accommodation booked yet.

00:25:40Melissa Ellis: Well, I haven't booked my airport parking yet. Oh, dear.

00:25:46Tony O'Connell: That's on the list.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:25:48Tony O'Connell: Anyway, Mel, I reckon it's time. We've rabbited on for a while or we've Australian-ized it. We've, I don't know, spoken like kookaburras for a while. How about we throw to somebody else?

00:25:55[background music]

Roving report Yvette Turner — Downsview parkrun

00:26:08Yvette Turner: Hi, parkrun adventurers. It's Yvette Turner. My home parkrun is Gungahlin in Canberra, Australia. But today I'm here at Downsview parkrun in Oakville in, no, Toronto. Yes. And I'm just going to introduce you to two people that started this parkrun. So can you please introduce yourself?

00:26:25Rahul - Co-Event Director, Downsview parkrun: Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm Rahul. I'm one of the Co-Event Directors for Downsview parkrun.

00:26:30Amy - Co-Event Director, Downsview parkrun: Hello, I'm Amy and I'm the other Co-Event Director for Downsview parkrun.

00:26:34Yvette Turner: And so today was event number one, six?

00:26:38Rahul - Co-Event Director, Downsview parkrun: One, nine, three, I think? Yeah, we're closing in on 200. So we're in the 190s somewhere.

00:26:39[crosstalk]

00:26:43Yvette Turner: And so can you tell me how you got this parkrun started? Because there isn't one in downtown Toronto. So we've had to come about a half hour taxi ride to get to you guys. So how did you start this parkrun?

00:26:53Amy - Co-Event Director, Downsview parkrun: So this parkrun started in September 2019. September 21st to be exact. So we're just coming up onto our six year anniversary this September. Thank you for having me.

00:27:06Melissa Ellis: Lovely to meet you. Bye.

00:27:08Amy - Co-Event Director, Downsview parkrun: um and um it started with a group of there was about five of us that really wanted to put a parkrun together there were a couple of other parkruns in the greater toronto area the nearest one being a mississauga um and so we worked with the parkrun country head to work with the city to get permitting. Downsview Park is actually federal land. It's not technically on City of Toronto land so we have a permit with the federal government. It's Parks Canada land. um and so that's why it started here this park is really nice it's got really wide paths um it is accessible by the ttc there's a subway stop here just on the other side of the park there's ample parking there's city bike docking stations for bikes and there's a lot of housing being built in the six years we've been here there's been a lot of apartment buildings built around the park so there's a really good community here yeah um parkrun's obviously growing, we average around 100 people a week. When we started we would have maybe 10 to 20 people but even in the dead of winter we still have a lot of people show up. The park maintenance team will always make sure they've ploughed the path for us before 9am on a Saturday in the winter so we're able to maintain Our Park.

00:28:37Yvette Turner: run throughout the winter fantastic and Rahul, can you, for people who've never done this parkrun can you just explain the course and and just sort of detail it out so people can get an idea in their head of what the course is like sure um so it's two and a half laps uh we do a pre-race briefing

00:28:56Rahul - Co-Event Director, Downsview parkrun: And then walk to the start, which is the first of those two and a half laps is the partial lap, basically. So we run from the start to the finish. And then from that first point that runners cross the finish line, there's two full laps of a loop here at Downsview. So it ends up being about two and a half laps for the 5k lap. There is a hill that you have to do three times. Unfortunately, it is part of that partial lap, but in exchange for doing that hill three times, you also get to do your final sprint finish on a downhill, which is not too bad. We're very lucky to have winter maintenance all year round because this is probably not true in every country that does parkrun. But in most parts of Canada, we do have a pretty significant winter with a lot of snowfall. Temperatures can get below minus 20 Celsius here. But we're very lucky that the park has a really good groundskeeping crew. So pretty much as soon as there's a snowfall... They're out shoveling the pavement here, de-icing, doing all of that stuff. So we're actually able to go year round, despite the fact that we have a cold winter.

00:30:02Yvette Turner: That's great. Now, I did see a rabbit, two rabbits. I saw some squirrels. Do you have other animals that you come across on the course at all?

00:30:10Amy - Co-Event Director, Downsview parkrun: We have lots of birds of prey in this park. And so there's also a lot of... bird watches that come out and so you'll see sometimes when you're running park around you'll see people with uh big big cameras with big lenses on them and they're looking at birds of prey in the trees so this is a this is a park that has a lot of wildlife they are the whole wildlife conservatory

00:30:35Yvette Turner: team that um comes out and like tracks all the wild animals in this park as well yes oh well thank you so much for joining me today we have really enjoyed the parkrun it it's very hot we've come from winter at home so I have sweated profusely that sneaky hill it's quite long and quite mean like you sort of look at it think that's okay that when you do it three times but yeah the sprint finish was fantastic so thank you so much for hosting us today um and thank you for spending some time with me talking about your beautiful parkrun Absolutely, yeah, thanks for coming.

00:30:51[crosstalk]

Roving report Calum Burrell — Trentham Gardens parkrun

00:31:08Calum Burrell: Welcome, parkrun adventurers, to Trentham Gardens in Staffordshire, where, I can't remember the event number, but who cares, because this week I am with podcast royalty, if I can say it properly. Anyway, you introduce yourself.

00:31:25Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: Good morning Calum. It's Nicola Forward from With Me Now but I do have one correction to make because you said we're at Trentham Gardens and it's Trentham Gardens. I did actually check with the Run Director today.

00:31:34[crosstalk]

00:31:37Calum Burrell: So I can say Dalgethai but I can't say Trentham. So what was the reason for your coming here today?

00:31:44Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: So I wanted an epic venue to celebrate my 250th different parkrun. And I have heard wonderful things about Trentham Gardens for a very long time. And I'm not sure why I've not made it over here yet. But it is fantastic. It's a bit rainy. It feels a bit like Australian weather at the moment. I know those guys are a bit cold and wet.

00:32:05Calum Burrell: But it stayed dry during the event, didn't it? But we were lucky. Yeah, right. Very lucky. We've got soggy bottoms now haven't we? We're sat on a wet bench.

00:32:09[crosstalk]

00:32:12Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: Yes, we're very soggy bottoms. But it was a really beautiful event. Can't recommend it highly enough. And there were fairies all around the course.

00:32:21Calum Burrell: Fairy trail, yeah.

00:32:22Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: A fairy trail.

00:32:23Calum Burrell: Yeah.

00:32:24Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: They're sort of made of wire and really majestic and magical, beautiful fairies. I think the sculptor is Robin Wright. Is that, yeah, Robin Wright, I think.

00:32:33[crosstalk]

00:32:34Calum Burrell: Yeah, definitely. I haven't done my Wikipedia research before coming here.

00:32:37Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: But it was a magical one-lapper through the Trentham Estate.

00:32:41Calum Burrell: Nice wide pass. I mean, they had, oh, was it 893 here today? So you actually beat Bushy.

00:32:49Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: Bushy Park would beat Bushy Park. I think it might have been the second busiest in the UK today. So a real turnout, obviously, for my 250 different.

00:32:54[crosstalk]

00:33:00Calum Burrell: So on this journey, obviously, 250 different events. I mean, where do you start and where do you end? I mean, obviously, you know where we've ended, but in terms of what would be your three highlights? Let's just narrow it down as much as you can. I know there's like 15 in your top three, I know. So you might have to reel it off. But in recent memory, what have you been your highlights?

00:33:19Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: Do you know, I was going to have a think now because yes, it is a joke that there are 50 in my top 10, but I might now make a list of my definitive top 10 parkruns. And they're all for different things. Look, there's events like here and Fountains Abbey or Eden Project where we are blessed to be able to run somewhere that is fee paying. We don't normally, as members of the public, have access to that without paying entrance. And I think that's really special that people can have access without paying, um and then there's some magical events like Bere Island comes up time and time again but it has to just for that magical parkrun experience where the ferry the minibus to the start line those are part of it and then our parkrun adventures to Japan recently Japan was never on my radar as a destination I don't know why not I think maybe I just felt like it was really long way away um But actually, parkrun's got me there to different countries and I've explored the world through parkrun. So I think my highlights would be less about specific events and more about all of the people I've met and the communities that have welcomed us in across the globe.

00:34:28Calum Burrell: Yeah.

00:34:29Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: And it's just an absolute privilege to be welcomed into those communities and parkrun being the vehicle for that. Yeah.

00:34:36Calum Burrell: Yeah, do you think you'll get down to Australia and New Zealand at some point again?

00:34:40[crosstalk]

00:34:40Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: I don't know, it's so expensive. How do we make it cheaper? Can we have some sort of exchange programme? I go and live there, a partner comes and lives here.

00:34:49Calum Burrell: Obviously, Melissa needs to come and do... I was listening back to some of the old podcasts and apparently her old Eynesbury Juniors have twinned with Town Moor, which I only discovered relatively recently. I don't even have a clue where Town Moor is, but obviously that's up in Newcastle. But yeah, that's what we need to do. We need to do an exchange.

00:35:05[crosstalk]

00:35:05Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: need an exchange program so the accommodation is so yeah it's literally just the flights which are expensive enough in themselves aren't they but I would love to go back yeah especially I think when we ran in Singapore there was only one parkrun there I'm sure there's loads more in Australia New Zealand it was hard to plan that trip because we wanted to be at a parkrun on a Saturday but now there's so many more 60 or something though isn't it yeah yeah so yeah no thank you for inviting us and thank you for the gorgeous cake absolutely fantastic cake and you ate my face

00:35:25[crosstalk]

00:35:35[laughter]

00:35:37Calum Burrell: Yes, I had a slice, which happened to have Nicola's face on. But, yeah, no, fantastic morning. And, yeah, you couldn't have asked for a better location in terms of stunning scenery. There's the lake. They had rows on the lake as well. And you were just distracted the whole way, weren't you?

00:35:55Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: Well, Poppy said, can we walk? And I said, darling, you can walk, but I can't. I need to start at the front. Because I need the time to stop and take photos and enjoy everything. And so we did that. And I finished after Poppy. So that is how long. Because this event, when you finish, you are funneled outside the members area, as they call it. So you can't go back in. So it's definitely not one for a PB. It's one just to take your time and enjoy where you are. Which is my favourite sort of parkrun.

00:36:12[crosstalk]

00:36:22Calum Burrell: Yeah, it was a perfect venue for... A perfect occasion. So thank you for inviting us. Thank you for coming. You've given us plenty of notice so we could come along. And yeah, well done. And look forward to wherever it takes you for the next 250. Yeah. And obviously you've got, what is it, 750 to come up at some point?

00:36:41[crosstalk]

00:36:41Nicola Forward - co-presenter of the With Me Now podcast: Yes, I think I'm about 10 away from my 750th. So hopefully parkrun HQ will make it a milestone by then.

00:36:47Calum Burrell: Yeah, brilliant. Okay, on that bombshell, it's Calum and Nicola over and out. Thank you.

Roving report Ali Sheppard — Billericay parkrun

00:36:53Ali Sheppard: G'day adventurers, Ali from the UK and I am here at Billericay parkrun, we've just done the parkrun and Billericay is in Essex and I'm here with the, are you the Event Director?

00:37:08David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: I am, yes I'm David, the Event Director at Billericay parkrun, lovely to see you here today.

00:37:14Ali Sheppard: And you set it all up I believe?

00:37:16David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: Yeah it was eight years, it was our eighth birthday today and we set it up. It's a lovely little town but there weren't very many parkruns around really in 2017. Our nearest one was in a nearby city called Chelmsford but every time I went there I saw people out walking and jogging in the morning. I thought it'd be great to get one for the town and after a bit of work and a bit of fundraising and finding some brilliant volunteers away we go and eight years later it was fantastic to Welcome nearly 300 people today, volunteering, walking, running, spectating, just having fun.

00:37:51Ali Sheppard: It's been a fantastic day. You've had cake. Your Run Director today was wearing a cake cat with candles on it. You had balloons. It's been a real party atmosphere.

00:38:01David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: Absolutely. Well, we try and have a party atmosphere every week, but birthdays and high days are definitely even more special, a little bit more special. And we try and get out every Saturday. Everybody courses welcome at parkrun. And it's a lovely town course. It's a four-lap course, which is unusual for parkruns in the UK. But we've got enough variety in the park, I think, to keep people interested. And it enables...

00:38:26Ali Sheppard: our fantastic marshals to have more interaction with the participants yeah and it goes around a lake there's fountains in the lake and it's it's really beautiful it's a real you know it's really lovely have you found it's changed over the eight years

00:38:38David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: Yeah and we've seen some of the youngsters who started with us growing up babes in arms in fact who are now parkrunning every week we see people just develop from I couldn't possibly do that maybe even only start with one lap or two laps and then drop out to now being very accomplished finishers and it's even better to see people who think they couldn't run doing the 5k regularly but then using that as a springboard to 10k events half marathons even marathons it's It's an amazing entry point and can be for whatever people want it to be.

00:39:11Ali Sheppard: Absolutely. And have you done, I mean, you said you were at Chelmsford before. Have you done much parkrunning outside of Billericay and Chelmsford?

00:39:20[crosstalk]

00:39:20David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: Billericay is a strong magnet for me. If you're looking for me on a Saturday, I'm usually here. I've done a bit of tourism and I'm also a parkrun ambassador, so I try and advise other local events. But no, home is definitely Billericay and that's where I am nine Saturdays out of ten.

00:39:37Ali Sheppard: And if you mention Billericay to a lot of people in the UK, they will think immediately of Gavin and Stacey.

00:39:43David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: They will.

00:39:45Ali Sheppard: And one of the things about Gavin and Stacey is that the Gavin and Stacey of the title come from Billericay and also from Barry Island in Wales. Yeah. And there's certain phrases that have become little catchphrases like, what's occurring?

00:40:01David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: Tidy.

00:40:02Ali Sheppard: Tidy. And I believe that you've actually sort of had a little bit of a sort of relationship with Barry Island parkrun.

00:40:09David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: Yeah. We've always been closed. The comedy series is very popular in the UK. Yes. And in the autumn, we always have to cancel on a particular day each year. So sometimes we tour about to different events. And early on in our life, we took a whole trip of people out to Barry Island. Fantastic, it became a real exchange experience and there's a very niche parkrun challenge which is about doing the the Billericay and Barry Island Gavin and Stacey double yeah only two events you need to complete to to do that double but they're two very special we love a challenge we love a little unofficial challenge so I haven't done Barry Island so I will now have to do Barry Island lovely event by the sea and when actually a good deal of the series was filmed yeah less so here in Billericay

00:40:38[crosstalk]

00:41:00Ali Sheppard: So then I can get my Gavin and Stacey badge, join my Gavin and Stacey club. No, that's fantastic. The other reason I came here today is not just because it's the eighth birthday of Billericay and I've always wanted to come because of the Gavin and Stacey thing, but also because the last Saturday of each month, at Billericay, there is a group of people who come who are called 5K Your Way. And this is an initiative around the UK. I don't believe it's in Australia yet, but, you know, if there's anyone in Australia who wants to start it up over there, I'm sure they'd be very glad. And I've got two people with me today. I've got Sally and Peter who are from 5K Your Way. So can you explain what 5K UK Your Way is all about?

00:41:48Sally - 5K Your Way ambassador, Billericay: Of course. Hi, good morning. So we set this up almost three years ago and basically it's just to keep people moving who are either living with or beyond cancer, whether it's walking, running or something in between. But it's also about the social involvement as well, the chatting on the way around and just reaching out to people that you may not necessarily have met before.

00:42:10Ali Sheppard: Yes, yeah. And you set it up three years ago. You're both ambassadors, I understand.

00:42:16Peter - nurse and 5K Your Way ambassador, Billericay: Yeah, my name's Peter, I'm a nurse, and actually I met Sally through my job, and Sally said she was going to do a 5K, and well, with what she'd been through, it was fantastic. So it's just making people realise that exercise is so important, both the social side of it, the physical side of it, and being supported while you're doing it. So you can turn up and take your time, if you want to run, you can run, but do what you want, and as much as you can with what everybody's dealing with.

00:42:46Ali Sheppard: Yeah, and these 5K Your Way groups, they're all around the country. You can look up on the website and you can see, you can search and find your nearest group. So have you done much parkrunning, adventuring, touring outside of Billericay? I've done a few.

00:43:06[crosstalk]

00:43:06Sally - 5K Your Way ambassador, Billericay: This is my 82nd parkrun. Fantastic. And I have also done Krakow in Poland, Chelmsford, which is a local one, and one in Brighton. Fantastic. But I haven't ventured much further.

00:43:13[crosstalk]

00:43:18Peter - nurse and 5K Your Way ambassador, Billericay: Yeah, I've done Poland as well. I've done Guernsey, and my home one is Chelmsford, and I've kind of volunteered there about 80 times. That's amazing. And I think this is my 70th parkrun, 70th.

00:43:22[crosstalk]

00:43:31Ali Sheppard: I'm not going to ask all of you. One of the things that we do on this podcast is generally ask, but I'm going to ask David this because you're an ambassador, parkrun ambassador, and you've been around to quite a few parkruns. So I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you what your top three, not necessarily your favourite parkruns, not including your home parkrun, so we can't have Chelmsford or Billericay, but maybe three memorable parkrun experiences that you've had.

00:43:57David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: Well, and I'm also going to exclude the Barry Island trip.

00:44:00Ali Sheppard: Exclude Barry Island, yeah.

00:44:01David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: Because that would be right at the top of the list. I really loved visiting Bushy parkrun. Yes. Only ever been there the once. For the pilgrimage. For the pilgrimage, but it's an experience worth doing if you can. I really enjoyed the inaugural event at Wickford parkrun. They're wonderful, one of our neighbours here at Billericay. Again, a really lovely event. And another inaugural, I remember, again, local Brentwood, which is a beautiful country park close by to Billericay. And they're just very special events just to see the beginning of a journey that years and years later you can go back and see how an event has evolved. And the events that welcome 5K Your Way, they are better because 5K Your Way is there. We're delighted to have... the monthly pilgrimage because it just enhances the event and it changes the dynamic of everyone that's here. But you can't rank parkruns.

00:44:54[crosstalk]

00:44:59Ali Sheppard: You can't rank them. They're all awesome. They are all awesome. But it gives me an idea of where to go. I've not been to Brentwood, so is it hilly?

00:45:06[crosstalk]

00:45:08David Hayday - Event Director, Billericay parkrun: It's very hilly. It's very hilly, but it's very beautiful, particularly in the summer. I recommend it.

00:45:15[background music]

00:45:16Ali Sheppard: Oh, no, that's brilliant. Thank you so much, everyone. It's been fantastic. And I'll have to come back next month. So that's a wrap, adventurers. Thank you.

00:45:29Melissa Ellis: And thank you very much to our roving reporters. We had Yvette Turner out at Downsview parkrun in Toronto in Canada. That was back on the 5th of July. And Yvette was talking to Amy and Rahul, the EDs out there at Downsview. Then we heard from Calum out at Trentham Gardens. Now, he was interviewing Nicola Forward, who also recently achieved her 250th different event. That event, Trentham Gardens, is in Staffordshire in the West Midlands of England. Now, congratulations again to Nicola. The event definitely sounded magical and I 100% agree with her sentiments about parkrun Highlights being the experiences that you have at parkrun. Of course, that is made up both of the actual perceived beauty of the event, but also the volunteers and the people that you experience when you're there. And then thirdly, we had Ali out at Billericay. Now, I had to write that phonetically for myself, so I got it right. I hope I did do it justice. Now, it was their eighth birthday out at Billericay, and Ali was there getting her Gavin and Stacey badge. And we did hear a little bit of an explanation about what a Gavin and Stacey badge entails. She also spoke to David Hayday and Sally and Peter from 5K Your Way, which is an initiative that keeps people moving who are living with cancer keeps them socialising and networking and it promotes the importance of exercise so you can actually check the 5k your way website for their locations they host the 5k your way at a parkrun on the last Saturday of each month Ali did say she doesn't believe it's in Australia I didn't get a chance to clarify that, although I feel like 5k your way is a term I'm familiar with. Of course, it could just be because I've heard it on our friends with me now in the past. I'm not really sure about that, TOC.

00:47:37Tony O'Connell: I've definitely heard 5k your way, but I think it's been more I've heard it in a parkrun context from a few different people. My memory is that one of our parkrun friends uses the term quite a bit. No, I can't. put a finger on who it is. I found it interesting listening to Rahul talk about snowplows and things and in the background it almost sounded like he got skittled by a snowplow. There was a truck or something that went through and it sounded horribly close to him so I hope they weren't out on the road recording or something because it sounded like he really got skittled by a truck. And, yeah, as you said, always great to catch up with Nick Nick. And you're right, the highlights are the experiences you get out of parkrun. Even the parkruns that are not majestically scenic, there's always some really good points about them. And it's the people, it's the experiences, it's the company. Yeah, you've got to love all that.

00:48:34Melissa Ellis: Or it's just when you get locked in the toilet.

00:48:36Tony O'Connell: Yep, and you learn to take a screwdriver to parkruns.

Dazza's

00:48:42Tony O'Connell: Righty-o Mel, I think we should move into Dazza's. And we've chosen five comments from the last two weeks of Dazza's posts. For the first one, last week Dazza said, Did you go to a nice rural park? Perhaps it was more of an urban jungle. However your park looked, come on into Dazza's and tell us about your park and your parkrun.

00:49:13Melissa Ellis: And the adventurer challenge, of course, we set in our last episode was to visit Dazza's with an ugly top to celebrate Ugly Christmas in July. Now, first in the cafe this week was Pippa White coming to us from the UK and she said, well, we went to Northala Fields Park Parts of the park built from the rubble of the old Wembley Stadium. And Pippa was there in her ugly budgie top behind the Northala Fields pop-up. And that's interesting. The ruins, well, the rubble of the old Wembley Stadium. So I guess the Wembley Stadium was bulldozed and used as fill. That's what it sounds like to me. Clean fill.

00:49:51Tony O'Connell: One of those things, Mel, that the reference on our UK audience is probably, they're probably all jumping out and screaming at us at the moment saying, it was this, it was that. But yeah, for the Australian context, we're probably not all that familiar with it. But I'll move on now. Helen Reeves was our next one from Victoria. Got the ugly on with our four generations. And the photo is Helen and her family at Traralgon parkrun. And we saw an ugly platypus, echidna version, ugly style tops in both adult and kids versions. A hawk supporter. And I believe there's a connection there with you, Mel.

00:50:31Melissa Ellis: Yes. So I actually know Helen's daughter, Caitlin, from my old running club days at Raring to Run. And I believe the two kids in Helen's photo would be her grandchildren and Caitlin's children. So good to see them running as a family. And I just took a punt that that was Traralgon. It looked to me like it was the gazebo at Traralgon. Next in the door, we had Ali Sheppard coming to us from the UK. She said ugly budgies that were not being smuggled anywhere. And fluffy, the not fluffy emu were present at Kingston parkrun, modelled by Helen Rutter and myself. We had to explain a zillion times why we were wearing festive wear in July in the UK. But most excitingly, I think we were part of a frond of five. As aside from the friends we knew and had arranged to meet, we also met the lovely Angharad Callaghan, who is originally from Melbourne, who is a fully signed up adventurer and who listens to the pod. I hope I said your name right there. And Helen and Ali were both looking fabulous in their uglies in the attached photo.

00:50:51[crosstalk]

00:51:40Tony O'Connell: And I love the fact that they had to explain it a zillion times. That's a lot of explaining around five kilometres. I'm wondering, is that how many zillions to a kilometre would that have been? Right, we're going to move across to South Africa and our good friend Johan. After the unfortunate incident travelling to our overnight destination, Levi and I still managed to parkrun without further troubles. In a first for us, we were treated to foot and mouth disease control measures before entering the grounds of Rooi Point Farm parkrun in South Africa, where it was chilly and all fogged down for the bulk of the run. Awesome team and not just at the finish. Levi got a lot of attention and apparently my Ugly Christmas Shirt also got a notice or two. And just a quick thing, I did a quick Google search and the naartjies that Johan has referred to there are very similar to what we'd call a Mandarin or an orange, sort of a cross between the two of them. And Johan put a picture in of him running in his fluffy version ugly Christmas top with Levi, and it does look very cold.

00:52:47Melissa Ellis: Yes, and we wanted to give our condolences to Johan, who we know has recently lost his fur baby, Jack. Johan had Jack for 13 years after rescuing him from an animal shelter. We know the deep loss, and we feel your pain, Johan. Sending you lots of love. Now next we heard from Rex Gream coming to us from New South Wales and he said, And then in brackets, And yes, that is my koala ugly under the jacket.

00:53:15[14 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:53:29Melissa Ellis: the long black tasted great after the wet walk now a couple of references there I'm guessing ho run is a reference to Christmas and ho ho ho so it was Ugly Christmas in July so I'm thinking that's where ho run comes from but I don't know I'm not sure about that one oh I'm not sure what happens at armadale stays at armadale And the reference to the mud bath, in the photo, Rex was looking very muddy there at Armidale Park, and so I assume he might have had a little slip and a mishap and got himself a little bit muddy in the... Oh, what am I trying to say? The words aren't coming out, dog. You know what I mean. Anyway, all right, that's the first week. So now we turn our attention to last weekend, the 2nd of August, and this week, as I said, it's International Clown Week. We adventurers may not be above looking a bit silly at parkrun, and I know plenty of us aim to make people laugh, but I just hope your shoes weren't too big. Wherever you went to do your parkrun this weekend, hopefully you did it with a smile. Come on into Dazza's and let us know how it went.

00:54:38Tony O'Connell: And we're going to start off with Cathy Crispin in New South Wales. It often feels like we're clowning around when we parkrun in the rain. Had the pleasure of meeting Cameron Storey from University of Western Australia on our wet weather course this morning along with his fam. Fun fact. See what I did there, Dazza? Fun? Clown? Yeah. And a clown face emoji and a laughing emoji. Of 56 participants plus volunteers, we had at least 11 RDs and or EDs, EAs at Panania parkrun today. Pretty impressive stats.

00:55:13Melissa Ellis: Panania.

00:55:13Tony O'Connell: Panania. Yeah. Oh, I'm terrible with pronunciation. It's not even an overseas one. It's not even a Polish or a Japanese one. I can't even get the Australians right now. The photo, Cathy grabbed a selfie with Cam and also spied Caravos there too. And we think it was Jonathan's story in the photo too, wearing his 500 shirt.

00:55:35Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I did a bit of an investigation there because I noticed there was a face I didn't know in a 500 shirt. So I thought I'd better have a look at the results and see how many people who, you know, in Australia, there still isn't a great amount of people who've reached the 500 milestone. It's growing week by week. We're seeing them now, aren't we, TOC?

00:55:53Tony O'Connell: We had four people in 500 tops at Belvedere on the weekend.

00:55:59Melissa Ellis: Really? Very good.

00:56:00Tony O'Connell: I haven't seen that many at a stadium.

00:56:03Melissa Ellis: No, they're still quite unusual to see. So I had a look at the results and there was only three people when I filtered for most runs. There was only three people and they were all the stories, I think. So... I do believe it would have been Jonathan Story. Anyway, moving on. Lee Cabarita. That's her porn name. She said,

00:56:27[14 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:56:41Melissa Ellis: I had two casualties, one being a fall with a young girl scratching her face, knees and hands, but only wanted band-aids so she could keep running to the finish. Bless. Second, unrelated, was a lady who cut her gums and upper lip on a stack. I chatted with a group of local boys along the way and asked them why they weren't parkrunning this morning – they were on their second beer – and said they might run next week to the pub. Those who know the course mention the Jesus Loves Nachos Bridge. I asked about it and was told it was because the bridge is a big cheese grater and there's a laughing face emoji. After parkrun, I had a coffee and a brekkie bar and me at the Popbrooket Cafe and packed up to head to Alice Springs for next week. Then on to Broken Hill in time for the Mundy Mundy Bash. Till next time, cooee! And there was a pic of Leigh in her parkwalker vest with her coffee at the entry to the hot springs. So there's a few things to unpack there. I love that they might run to the pub. They make me giggle. And the cheese grater bridge, they're those ones where you fall over and you grate your knee off, isn't it?

00:57:49Tony O'Connell: They are, yeah, the metal grates with the non-slip coating on them. Yeah, they're fairly dangerous.

00:57:55Melissa Ellis: And I wonder if with the Cooee, see, that could be an adventurer call, couldn't it, TOC?

00:58:02Tony O'Connell: That's a very Australian call out too. It is.

00:58:05Melissa Ellis: Yep. Yeah, I like Cooee. Anyway.

00:58:09Tony O'Connell: I'm just, my mind went completely off track there, Mel, and I was just visualising like one of the parkruns in the Netherlands and someone running along yelling at Cooee and everyone just stopping and looking at me. What on earth was that? So that's got merit. Yes. Well, next we heard from Sandy the scrubber. And we're not sure where Sandy comes from or what she actually scrubs. But I did my first parkrun and people were friendly to me. I didn't see any clowns though. And there was no photo for context. So that's just a random comment that we had in Dazza's this week. Do you know who that is? No, I don't.

00:58:50Melissa Ellis: That's our cleaner.

00:58:51Tony O'Connell: Oh, well, our cleaner didn't even tell us where she's come from or where she's going. Well, I think she must live... One parkrun and she's on the payroll. What are we paying this lady, in caramilk or what?

00:59:05[laughter]

00:59:08Melissa Ellis: No, she's been employed to get rid of the caramilk. But she was local to Level 2 with a view, so the parkrun she went to must be somewhere close to the office. That's all I can say. But the good thing is we've recruited a new parkrunner.

00:59:26Tony O'Connell: See? We have. That's one of our 15.1% of new people.

00:59:29Melissa Ellis: Exactly. So that's a good thing. You can't work for the podcast unless you're a parkrunner, really.

00:59:37Tony O'Connell: So this week I'm going to go to Dazza's and I'm going to troll through every comment and see if Sandy the scrubber turns up for the all-important number two parkrun. Ooh. Will she come back?

00:59:48Melissa Ellis: There's pressure.

00:59:49Tony O'Connell: There's pressure.

00:59:51Melissa Ellis: All right, next we heard from Mark Hibbard. He was also in New South Wales. New South Wales is really overrepresented this week. Anyway, he said two clowns at Broken Hill Racecourse parkrun with three exclamation marks. So apparently that was remarkable. And he was with the running guy. So there was Mark and Ryan in their adventurous tops with the Broken Hill selfie frame. Now is Broken Hill not the one that got cancelled the week before?

01:00:16Tony O'Connell: It was. Yeah, it was the one that had lots of water and mud and very sticky mud. So, yeah. Okay. Back on track. And we're going to go across to the UK. We're out in New South Wales. We're on a plane and we've gone to the UK. And we're going to hear from Colleen Kleinschmidt. Triple celebration at my 200th event with my 100th volunteer and 100th location. And congratulations, Colleen. Photos of Colleen wearing a parkwalker vest holding a hundred shirt cut out by the Thames Path pop-up.

01:00:49Melissa Ellis: The Thames.

01:00:51Unidentified speaker: Thames.

01:00:52Melissa Ellis: They say their river as Thames.

01:00:54Tony O'Connell: So I can't even pronounce the Australian words right. I can't get the UK words right. I'm going to concentrate on the Japanese words.

01:01:01Melissa Ellis: I have to leave this in because you said that I have to leave it in. Everything I can't cut out. So I'm sorry.

01:01:06Tony O'Connell: I apologise.

01:01:07Melissa Ellis: But, you know.

01:01:08Tony O'Connell: And before we go any further, Mel, we're going to backtrack. And so the Wembley Stadium was rebuilt. It's actually the national home of the UK Football League. That's where they held their FA Cup final. And the stadium was actually built by an Australian company, Multiplex. So there's a fun fact for you.

01:01:25Melissa Ellis: But they said that they're parkrun, so it's clear space and it was built with rubble. So they must have demolished the first Wembley station and used it as clean fill, I reckon.

01:01:33[crosstalk]

01:01:38Tony O'Connell: I'm guessing you're probably right.

the Obi Award — Johan Duvenhage

01:01:40Melissa Ellis: Now it's time for the all-important Obi Award. It is, yes. All right. I've got the envelope here, so I shall do the honours. This week's Obi goes to... It goes to Johan.

01:02:05Tony O'Connell: Oh, well done, Johan.

01:02:07Melissa Ellis: That was a great photo of Johan and Levi. I really liked that one. Looking very cold and he was being festive. So he was remembering Ugly Christmas in July day as well. In his sadness.

01:02:17Tony O'Connell: Yep. Well done, Johan.

Emails

01:02:20Tony O'Connell: Righto, Mel, I think we're going to move on and we're going to go to our emails. And we have one this week. You've got mail. And our email says, Greetings for adventurers was the heading. Hi Mel and TOC and team. You were looking for a greeting by all your adventurers to each other. How about Zoomy? Zoomy Mel, Zoomy TOC, Zoomy Adventurer. Goes nicely with the photos everyone does. Just a thought. Simon Nash.

01:02:49Melissa Ellis: And that's funny because I just copy and pasted that email and I noticed he's got his phone number under there. Usually people put their athlete ID, but Simon's given me his phone number. He's trying to tell me something.

01:03:06Tony O'Connell: Simon is actually a very great adventurer. He does get around a fair bit. So I've met Simon at Inverloch and I've met him at another event somewhere as well. He's from Queensland. There you go. But there we go. Simon's put in an idea.

01:03:19Melissa Ellis: Okay, so let's have a talk about this. So I know you're not a fan of Ahoy and Ahoy is already taken. So then we had Ho Run.

01:03:29Tony O'Connell: Yeah, no, that's not going to cut it. I'm not going to really run around parks as some of the parks are in interesting locations yelling out, hoi run.

01:03:45Melissa Ellis: And then we've got Zoomy Zoomy or Zoomy Zoomy and Zoomy Back or we've got Cooee, Cooee Adventurer. And I had another one. I like wassail. I don't know if you've ever been to those medieval nights where everybody speaks in their old language and they go wassail. It's like a... Actually, I wrote it down. I've got it in my notes in my phone. It is a medieval toast to health and good fortune. So you could say wassail.

01:04:14Tony O'Connell: Let's keep thinking about it, shall we, Mel?

01:04:16Melissa Ellis: Fine. Fine.

01:04:22Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Mel. I think we'll keep thinking about that and we'll see if some more suggestions come in from the listeners. We do welcome all suggestions. Some of them we welcome more than others. Because some of them I think we'd get thrown out of the park if we started yelling out.

01:04:41Melissa Ellis: Up your bum!

01:04:46Tony O'Connell: Oh dear, you've just had a rating put on the podcast.

Club Corner

01:04:51Tony O'Connell: I think it's time for us to throw across and have a listen to Reginald.

01:05:00[background music]

01:05:03Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: This is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III with Club Corner, where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs, and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country. Continuing with the expansions for parkrun that happened in 2012, we have Ireland. The journey began in November of that year with Malahide parkrun and was the 10th parkrun country to open. To recap so far, we had a four-year gap between the launch of time trials in the UK and Zimbabwe, then less than two years to parkrun in Denmark. The next two years saw four countries, Australia, Poland, Iceland, and South Africa. Then in 2012 we had New Zealand, USA, and now Ireland. Phew! parkrun was on fire in the early years. In the dozen years since Ireland began, they now have 110 events. To quote the Wiki for parkrun in Ireland, the rollout of parkruns in Ireland was assisted by funding from the government's Department of Health with the aim of empowering local communities and encouraging individuals and families to lead active lives. I will forgive them using a capital P in their copy, when they can give me gems like the above, empowering, encouraging, so many words. Another quirk about Ireland, they had a TV show called Operation Transformation, which partnered with parkrun on several occasions. They encouraged viewers to join local parkruns and they held special Couch to 5K programs to coincide with the series. Something that Ireland did quicker than other countries was to adopt parkrun juniors, they were the second country after the UK. What are some possible highlights from parkrun Ireland, how long could we have? Ireland hosts the third oldest all-beach parkrun with Inch Beach parkrun, at Inch, County Kerry, on the edge of the North Atlantic Ocean. Picture this, it is summer by the beach, and the temperature might, I repeat might, get up to 20 degrees C, but not during parkrun. And in winter on the sand, it can range between 4 to 6 degrees C. Oof. Oh, did I mention that the average daylight hours in January is about 3 and a half hours per day? but the scenery, kiss of a chef. In fact, Ireland has two more all-beach parkruns, but you have already heard about them back in Club Corner 19 from late 2023. Searching for other Ireland points of interest, I read the BBC Countryfile Top 10 Hardest parkruns from March 2025, and Knockanacree Woods was mentioned in the same breath as Mundy Regional and Nambour from Oz. I can tell you that Knockanacree Woods has never had a female finisher under 20 minutes, and nor a male finisher under 17 minutes. And in fact, there has only been one male finisher since March 2019 under 18 minutes. Do with that information as you will. I mentioned scenery earlier, so how about a castle? Current course names include Castlebar, Castleblayney, Castlehaven, Castlerea, and Macroom Castle Demesne, but what about with an actual castle? And remember, in parkrun life, all non-Milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners.

01:08:16Melissa Ellis: Wassail, TOC! And we're back from Reginald, and Reginald was telling us all about Ireland.

01:08:27Tony O'Connell: Now, a couple of fun facts that the pixies have put into our show notes about Ireland. The currency is a euro. The distance from anywhere on the eastern seaboard of Australia is about 7,500 kilometres. It's more or less from other places, depending on whether you're closer or further away. For tourists over there, especially for Australians, Ireland can be fairly expensive. We found that when we went over there. The most expensive accommodation we had on our whole European trip was Dublin. Dublin was fairly expensive to stay in. Hoops of really great places to go and see, but some of the parkruns that they're, I guess, best known for, and that's what we're here for, things like Bere Island really jump out, as somewhere I would love to get to and the irish people they're very friendly welcoming and there's more pubs in the main street of an irish town than there's mcdonald's going through Melbourne wow that's a lot

01:09:29Melissa Ellis: But I agree with Bere Island. I remember hearing Bere Island discussed in the podcasts. I think it was maybe Scott and Mel back in the day that might have discussed Bere Island. Or I do get confused with the content because I listen to With Me Now as well as our pod. So sometimes I get confused for the content that was pre my involvement as a podcast, host so I apologise anyway yes I want to go there too is what I'm trying to say in a really long drawn out way but let's move on I'd have to say there's some amazing parkruns over there one that I'd love to get to oh yes we've got to go across on the boat and it's at 11 30 start and everything else just sounds really cool as an adventurer the ones that are hard to get to they appeal to me more I I want the challenge of getting there as well

01:10:22Tony O'Connell: Yep, all part of the adventure.

Consolidated Club Report

01:10:23Melissa Ellis: Correct. All right. Now, the adventurers Consolidated Club report. For Saturday, the 2nd of August, 2025, a total of 825 members, 542 took part on this date in 13 countries across 286 locations. So, bang, we went up to 820-odd, and now we've just kind of sat there for a couple of weeks. That's just the nature of the beast. Internationally, there were adventurers at 71 events in the UK. 10 events in South Africa five in the USA three in Ireland two in Germany and Italy and Austria Canada Japan Singapore and Sweden had one so interestingly 71 in the UK there is some growth happening there with adventurer listeners or adventurer participants Locally, there were adventurers at 49 events in Queensland, 42 events in the Greater State, 40 events in New South Wales, 17 in West Australia, South Australia had 13, 9 in Tassie, 8 on the North Island, ACT had 6, Northern Territory had 3 and 1 on the South Island.

01:11:34Tony O'Connell: Well, I found that really incredible. We actually had adventurers in 13 parkrun countries when you add all those up last week, which is, I find that huge, that we've got people all over the world out there adventuring and listening into the podcast.

the Frond

01:11:51Tony O'Connell: And speaking of all over the world, our international fronds, for the 26th of July, we had a frond of five, and they included our good friend Danny Norman, Andy and Helen Rudder, Angharad Callaghan and Ali Sheppard at Kingston. And then on the 2nd of August, we had a frond of seven. And they were Debbie and Andy Airey, James Avery, Rhiannon Taylor, Ivan Storer, Christopher Miles and Ali Soper at Portrush. And as mentioned in Dazza's special congratulations to Helen for completing her 250th different event, which is also the Freyne.

01:12:30Melissa Ellis: now pilgrimages on the 26th of july we had christopher hartley he finished in position 1347 out of a total of 1477 in a time of 4233 it was his first visit to Bushy so he was a true blue pilgrim and we think he's from the UK And on the 2nd of August, which was last Saturday, there was none, none, zilch, zero, nada. But the Aussie largest fronds for the last two weeks, on the 26th of July, there was a frond of eight out at Point Cook. in the greatest state. Someone's tried to trick me there. I see what you're doing, office fairies. It's not going to work. And they were Cheryl Smit, Bill Lodwick Jr., Andrew and James Reynolds, Garth and Terry Ann Dowling, and Irene and Parth Bomber Canty. Now, they were out at Point Cook celebrating Andrew Reynolds doing his 500th parkrun. We also want to wish Andrew a big congratulations on achieving that milestone. Now, last week, the 2nd of August, there was also a frond of nine at Belvedere in Victoria. And that was already mentioned earlier, TOC, when you did your recap, because you were there.

01:13:51Tony O'Connell: I was, Mel. And just, a reminder for everyone you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations in your parkrun profile I was talking to a couple of people the other day and they have a different club nominated as their primary club and they didn't realise that the other clubs actually also count so yep you can have up to five different clubs as part of your profile and if anyone needs a hand sing out we'd love to help you and get you into the adventurers and we've got dermon on board now too he's an adventurer so here's one of the two new ones One more, well done.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:14:24Tony O'Connell: Well, we're going to talk launches now. And we're going to start with two weeks ago, the 26th of July, and we had Kewarra Beach parkrun in Australia. It's north of Cairns in Queensland, and this becomes Queensland's second most northerly event, so it's right up the top end, week one saw 112 finishers and 15 volunteers and that increased to 142 on this second week the course is a two and a half lap out and back along a foreshore path and the coffee van which is called the toasted goat is located almost right on the finish line so you could almost order probably on your second lap so when you do your half lap to come back your coffee's ready that one actually escaped my attention I shall have to go and update my spreadsheet

01:15:14Melissa Ellis: now in the USA we had a launch at Como Park and it's a fourth event for minnesota and another event in minneapolis one and three quarter laps of lake como will see you at the five kilometre mark week one saw 109 finishes with 11 volunteers week two was cancelled due to poor air quality due to smoke from a canadian wildfires So the Canadian wildfire smoke is coming over the border and cancelling USA parkruns. That's not nice.

01:15:47Tony O'Connell: It is, Mel, and I'm not sure how it's getting over the border without having a passport and a stamp and a visa and over the wall. So, yeah.

01:15:57Yvette Turner: Mel?

01:15:58Tony O'Connell: We had a third launch on the 26th as well. We had East Holmes Field parkrun in the UK. This is south of the Yorkshire Dales National Park in the town of Ilkley and it's north of Bradford. It was due to start on the 26th of July but it was cancelled last minute due to some horse and buggy campers that set up on the start line overnight when they got there, um their web page is not live yet so it appears from my little research that they had just under 400 runners uh for the first week completing the four lapper 400 it says 200 in the show notes I must have read that wrong I've combined four laps and 200 finishes and come up with 400 finishes and 200 laps they had just under 200 finishes for their second week which is really their first week

01:16:51Melissa Ellis: Okay. Well, that's unfortunate. The horse and carts on the... Yeah, horses and wagons.

01:16:57Tony O'Connell: So they had like, I don't know whether it was gypsies or whoever, but I saw a photo and there was a dozen or so wagons and horses all set up in the starting area.

01:17:08Melissa Ellis: It would be like a protest. You will not parkrun on our native land.

01:17:14Tony O'Connell: Oh, goodness. And then, Mel, the 2nd of August... massive number of launches we had no launches globally for a whole week which is very unusual this year we've seen launches nearly every weekend there's been quite a few launches um we've gone a week without a launch so come on parkrun pick your game up and of course our ongoing segment watching the numbers is on hiatus until we find another event that we're interested in following okay so now it's time to look forward tock what are you looking forward to Well, I'm really looking forward to going for a walk in a winery on the weekend. I'm going to be going to Sirromet this weekend, and I'm hoping to catch up with a few friends. I believe you might be there as well.

01:18:05Melissa Ellis: As long as my plane doesn't fall out of the sky, I should be there. But you've got to bring a tutu. I didn't tell you that. Oh, by the way, everybody, BYO tutu.

01:18:14Tony O'Connell: Okay. Newsflash. Two twos.

01:18:19Melissa Ellis: We're going to make a bit of an effort. Apparently it's the thing.

01:18:22Tony O'Connell: I don't own a two-two. I've never worn a two-two before.

01:18:24[crosstalk]

01:18:25Melissa Ellis: Oh, I nearly swore. I nearly said a swear. That's not true. You're telling porcupines, Tony O'Connell.

01:18:32Tony O'Connell: Okay, I'll bring a collection of two-twos. Really looking forward to catching up with you in person instead of looking at you on a computer screen, Mel. It's going to be a great little day. I will be the party at the back. And, yeah.

01:18:47Melissa Ellis: Fabulous. Can you bring Jackie? Is Jackie coming?

01:18:51Tony O'Connell: Yes, Jacqui's definitely coming.

01:18:53Melissa Ellis: We take it for granted, don't we? She's always there. I'm looking forward to seeing you too, Jack. And, of course, that's also what I am looking forward to. So I know that there is a few of my friends that are going to be coming along. I hope to see any of you there. If you are in the vicinity and you can make it, please come and join the party. We'll be having coffee afterwards at the little cafe at Sirromet parkrun. So, yeah, come and join me.

parkrun adventure challengelistener challenge

01:19:19Melissa Ellis: Now, the listener challenge is to come to see her at my parkrun. Of course, you can't all make it. So maybe, maybe you just want to join me virtually and wear a tutu to parkrun.

01:19:32Tony O'Connell: That's not a bad idea for those that can't get it up to Sirromet. Let's get a bit of colour on that going with some tutus out there. And we've confused people by running around in our ugly tops in July. Let's confuse them by just turning up at a random parkrun in a tutu. That's for Mel.

Sign-off

01:19:51Melissa Ellis: Yeah, that'll be nice. That'll make me smile when I look at Dazza's. All right, well, next fortnight, you are relieved from hearing from TOC and I. You get to hear the lovely voices of Sarah and Simon. They will be back.

01:20:06Amy - Co-Event Director, Downsview parkrun: We didn't tell anybody why they weren't here.

01:20:09Melissa Ellis: We forgot. Sarah's flitted off to Singapore. I don't know where Simon is.

01:20:15Tony O'Connell: And it was just a good opportunity to catch up and have a talk before your Freyne and your 500. That's a huge milestone, Mel. I don't actually know all that many people that have 500 parkruns. So you're going to be in a very small collection of my friends that are going to be eligible for the blue shirt.

01:20:35Melissa Ellis: Oh, and do I get to be like a super Norman or something?

01:20:39Tony O'Connell: I was trying to remember what the exact classification is. I know there's a boring Norman for 100 events and 200 unique events and 250 parkruns.

01:20:53Melissa Ellis: Yeah, no, I think I'm a super Norman. I think I will be. Danny will tell me. He'll send me a little ear emoji and he will tell me an emoji. If he listens, he does listen.

01:21:06Tony O'Connell: Okay. Righty-o, Mel. Time for us to go. It's tea time.

01:21:10Melissa Ellis: You're cutting me off. Rude.

01:21:15Tony O'Connell: I'm trying to save you editing time and you want to keep going. Mel, as always, you can contact us via the parkrun adventurers on Facebook or our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another episode. We'll see you next time for more adventures.